Workshops

As an organization we provide informed, intersectional and customizable workshops. Our focus is on engaging youth and adults in a dialogue about diversity, THROUGH understanding the impact of oppression and discrimination.

The Canadian Centre for Gender & Sexual Diversity (CCGSD) offers a variety of workshops and is constantly creating new ones. CCGSD believes that information and education should be accessible to all demographics. Every workshop offered can be formatted to suit the needs of students from ALL grades, ability levels, teachers, parents, businesses and organizations.

Currently Team Education is available to book workshops in the Ottawa Valley and throughout Ontario. All workshops are delivered by Team Education except for the Jer’s Vision Motivational Address, which will be presented by Jeremy Dias. For more information or to book a workshop please contact Daniella Noël at education@ccgsd-ccdgs.org.

The Jer’s Vision Motivational Address

The Motivational Address is an assembly-style presentation that educates students about the effects of bullying through a presentation by CCGSD Executive Director, Jeremy Dias. Jeremy talks about his experiences facing racism and homophobia in a rural Ontario school. Jeremy will explain how he overcame discrimination by setting legal case precedents, leading to the creation of this not-for-profit organization. This award-winning presentation is a great way to begin the dialogue about diversity in your school and community, and to promote respect, stop bullying, and create positive community culture.

Gender and Sexuality 101

A staple for anyone unfamiliar with 2SLGBTQ+ topics and one of our most popular workshops. This workshop hopes to give a solid foundation regarding the 2SLGBTQ+ communities and the diverse identities within it. The goal is to expose people to some of the infinite variations of identities and expressions as well as normalize experiences of Queer folks in your community. This presentation works on building acceptance and celebration through having a better understanding of the globally diverse world that we live in.

Trans 101

A historically framed exploration of Trans identities and gender non-conforming people. We’ll discuss what transgender means, and what life is like when one doesn’t identify with the gender they were assigned at birth, whether that means living inside or outside of male and female binary. Participants will come away with real action steps on how to improve the lives of their trans peers, how to speak about trans people respectively inside and outside of school, and how they can pursue more information, and conduct individual research on the topic.

Intersecting Identities

With a comprehensive, and ever-growing list of gender and sexual identities, the participants will be invited to engage in a discussion about: race, sex, gender, orientation, class, ability, ect. The group will discuss how we each hold a multitude of identities, and what it looks like when those intersect. We will also touch on labels and the many limitations and benefits that are associated with the use of labels in our society. Participants will be encouraged to abandon assumptions about gender and sexuality, and to learn, share and embrace their own identities, regardless of what they may be now or in the future.

Curriculum pieces: Social Science, Diversity, Discrimination

Length: 45-75 minutes; Best delivered with 20-30 persons.

Grades: 6-12

Languages offered: English & French

Decolonizing Gender and Two Spirit Identities

This workshop gives a brief history of settler colonialism on Turtle Island, or what is currently referred to as North America. In the process of decolonizing and reclaiming indigenous identities as autonomous peoples. Indigenous communities have started to reclaim all traditional genders outside the Western gender binary and in Canada have termed them Two-Spirit. This workshop will explain what this term means and what it was born from.

Note: This workshop is facilitated by our Indigenous Elder and may incur an additional cost

Queer History

Our Educational Coordinators give a fascinating and interactive presentation on queer history throughout the 20th century. The presentation explore queer people through history, the history behind the stigmatization of same sex relationships, queer people during World War 2, the Aids Epidemic of the 1980’s and the fight for equality in Canada.

Curriculum pieces: Canadian history classes, civics and careers, Social Science classes

Length: 45-75 minutes; Best delivered with 20-30 persons.

Grades: 7-12

Languages offered: English & French

Queer HERstory

Queer HERstory takes intersectional feminist look at the sometimes forgotten queer women of our community. The presentation is an exploration of the many femme-identified individuals in the past (Ancient times) all the way to present (2010s) and their impact on the ways in which we perceive femininity and queerness. This workshop looks to highlight the femmes who had the courage to be themselves and refused to be underestimated by a patriarchal and heteronormative world.

Behind the Scenes: Events & Advocacy

This interactive workshop will take you behind the scenes of all the things you need to know in order to put on a successful event with your GSA. There will be a focus on how to plan events from start to finish and incorporate days of significance to advocate for 2SLGBTQ+ issues in your school (e.g: Day of Pink, Transgender Day of Remembrance, Queering Black History Month, Pride Month etc.)

Curriculum pieces: GSA and Diversity Club meetings

Length: 60-90 minutes; Best delivered with 10-30 persons.

Grades: 7-12

Languages offered: English and French

Feminism is for Everyone!

This workshop outlines the basics of feminist theory and de-bunks myths perpetrated by modern-day misogynistic society. While unpacking the structure of sexism, this workshop concludes with practices of self-empowerment. This workshop encourages reflection and discussion on topics such as gender, stereotypes and social inequalities.

Curriculum pieces: Social Science and Civics and Careers

Length: 45-75 minutes; Best delivered with 10-30 persons.

Grades: 5-12

Languages offered: English and French

Healthy Relationships and Sexual Consent

Our organization understands the importance of healthy sexuality and healthy relationships. Our Healthy Relationships and Sexual Consent workshop focuses on discussing physical and emotional boundaries, verbal consent, and the legality of sexual consent. Through discussing the dynamics and the ingredients of healthy relationships and consent, we hope to encourage all relationships to become healthy and consensual. This workshop can be geared towards different groups of youth and presentations to younger groups focusing on dynamics of consent within non-sexual relationships.

Intimate Partner Violence

The Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) Prevention Program at the Canadian Centre for Gender & Sexual Diversity aims to increase capacity of 2SLGBTQ+ agencies by providing them with tools, information on services, and training to support 2SLGBTQ+ victims of domestic physical assault, sexual assault and emotional abuse and to increase their access to the criminal justice system. We work with 2SLGBTQ+ agencies, law enforcement, and non-2SLGBTQ+ organizations to create best practices to address the gaps in victim services and increase access to justice for 2SLGBTQ+ people. The IPV Prevention program delivers comprehensive training to 2SLGBTQ+ agencies and criminal justice system players across the country on how to better support 2SLGBTQ+ victims of crime.

Awareness Workshop: LGBTQ+ Inclusion in Sports

This workshop starts by introducing LGBTQ+ identities and covers key terms and basic terminology in order to build a foundation for further knowledge. After an introduction to basic gender and sexuality concepts the focus shifts to how experiences of queer people in sports often differ from straight/cisgender athletes. The goal is to enlighten individuals on the varying obstacles and issues related to Queer Athletes in sports. Through open discussion facilitators will allow attendees to think and discuss about how we can; strive to be more welcoming to 2SLGBTQ+ athletes, create safe environment for Queer athletes to be themselves, increase inclusivity in sports, strategies to boost participation and success. Each workshop also features a Q&A portion.

This workshop is designed for sports facilities, teams ,and associations but can be easily adapt for High Schools.

Curriculum pieces: Physical Education and History

Length: 60-120 minutes; Best delivered with 20-30 persons

Grades: 5-12

Languages offered: English and French

Diversifying Biodiversity

This workshop explores sexual diversity and the multitude of social behaviours found in nature (plants and animals). The goal is foster critical thinking skills by disrupting the heteronormative bias of biological discourse and challenge the notion that homosexuality is “unnatural” in the animal kingdom and beyond.

Curriculum pieces: Biology (ecology, zoology, bias in science)

Length: 60-75 minutes; Best delivered with 20-30 persons.

Grades: 6-10

Languages offered: French and English

Sexual Differentiation and Intersex Conditions

Did you know that intersex folks are as common as redheads? This workshop aims to raise awareness of intersex conditions and explore the definitions of “male” and “female”. Customized to the grade level’s curriculum, this workshop explores a range of topics including: cell differentiation, human development, genetics, and anatomy.

Curriculum pieces: Biology, anatomy

Length: 60-75 minutes; Best delivered with 20-30 persons.

Grades: 10-12

Languages offered: French and English

More Me

Even in our LGBTQ+ communities, where celebrating our differences and feeling free to be ourselves should be a defining part of our lives, many of us still feel the pressure to conform to traditional beauty standards that are narrowly defined by particular notions of masculinity and femininity. The over representation and ongoing privileging of young, thin, able bodied, white, hyper-masculine, and cisgender people throughout our society informs how individuals throughout the LGBTQ+ community perceive ourselves. Consequently, these norms are deeply internalized and have a negative impact on self-worth and esteem on LGBTQ+ people. Many of us feel like we are not desirable, lovable and/or valuable unless we adhere to these unrealistic social standards of beauty. But we know members of our community are much more diverse than what is prescribed by these social beauty norms. We not only deserve to be validated for our differences that do not (and will not) fit the mold, but also, to have our differences represented and respected. We want more femmes, more people of colour, more women, more disabled folks, and more older people–we demand more of us!! The More Me workshop celebrates our diversity and pride in ourselves and our bodies. It seeks to address the underlying problems of racism, fatphobia, agism, ableism, and femmephobia that produce these standards of beauty and desirability.

Curriculum pieces: social science classes

Length 45-75 minutes; Best delivered with 15-30 persons.

Grades: 10-12

Languages offered: French and English

Codebreakers!: Alan Turing and the Enigma Machine

This workshop discusses the functioning of an Enigma machine and its role in the Second World War, with an activity using Caesar cipher and other beginner codes. The workshop finishes with a discussion on the life of Alan Turing, the father of modern computing, and a victim of state-sponsored homophobia.

Curriculum pieces: Math, Computer Science

Length: 60-75 minutes; Best delivered with 20-30 persons.

Grades: 9-10

Languages offered: French and English

Globally Queer

This presentation explores the civil rights, or lack thereof, of queer citizens throughout the globe. The workshop covers things like legality of same sex relations, discrimination protection, adoption rights and free press on queer issues.

Curriculum pieces: World Issues, Law, Geography

Length 45-75 minutes; Best delivered with 20-30 persons.

Grades: 9-12

Languages offered: English

Parent Council Training

CCGSD is pleased to offer workshops and resources to parents wanting to raise their kids in a queer-inclusive environment. We are hoping to enlighten parents and answer the questions they have about gender and sexuality in a safe and comfortable environment. These workshops are perfect for parent councils or groups of interested parents, and will offer practical ideas and resources.

We are hoping these parent workshops will be taught side by side with our flagship GRIS workshops for students and teacher

training workshops so that all interested parties will be able to learn about LGBTQ people.

Teacher Training Workshop

CCGSD understands that it is not just students who can benefit from workshops and presentations on diversity, but teachers as well. We often notice that teachers are just as enthusiastic and excitable about learning as the students. They ask us some of the most interesting and curious questions and are always grateful to have CCGSD come into their classroom.

Queering the Curriculum: A Teacher’s Guide

This workshop will take an intersectional feminist approach to the incorporation of queer inclusivity in education. This programming will look to address specific high school subjects that are typically lacking in inclusivity and equity, while presenting new and innovative ways to incorporate queer theory in the day-to-day lives of students. Examples of activities, resource material and other tools for secondary teachers will be provided to aid educators in learning to unpack their preconceived notions of queer identities and their place in the classroom.

Get involved in the community &help us build the future.

As a leader in anti-discrimination work, CCGSD runs programming all over Canada and the United States. Because of our hundreds of volunteers, we are able to reach over 250,000 people annually. We are also a proud leader in the International Day of Pink (DayOfPink.org).
Tel: 613-400-1875Email: info@ccgsd-ccdgs.org